this is adoor gopalakrishnan’s most recent film. adoor is one of the most lauded figures in india’s new cinema, and, of course, all but unknown outside of the film-festival circuit outside india. as far as i can tell, this is the only one of his films that is available on dvd–as part of some global cinema initiative (see comment 8 here). i hope more of his films will become available. this partly because while this film is interesting enough, and certainly quite beautiful to look at, it isn’t close to his best. it is about a hangman in the colonial era state of travancore (the film is set in 1940) and his spiritual/physical crisis around his work. there’s some dwelling on the ritual role of the hangman in the community–he doubles as a healer (his proximity to death making him closer to the goddess kali)–and some passing references to social justice/injustice, but it just didn’t all come together for me. in a director’s statement on the dvd adoor writes that this is a film to be understood after it is seen, not during, so maybe i need to think about it more, or maybe watch it again.
i would recommend it anyway (netflix has it). i’ll also repeat my earlier recommendations of the early films of shyam benegal (which netflix also has). as far as i can tell, no one but jeff has taken these up.